Cincinnati Post On Its Deathbed: Still Kicking Enquirer's Keister

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- The Society of Professional Journalists chapter based in Cincinnati just held its annual awards banquet to celebrate outstanding work by reporters and editors over the past year. And the Cincinnati Post, an E.W. Scripps afternoon daily that is scheduled to close its doors forever in December, clobbered its crosstown morning rival. The Post won 52 awards, including 16 firsts. The epitaph can read: Kicked the Enquirer's ass till the day we died.

Gannett Co. Inc.'s Cincinnati Enquirer managed to win just 31 awards. In other words, the Post is flat on its back, barely with a pulse, poised for certain doom. Yet, its death rattle is still a voice judged superior to that of the Enquirer, a larger paper with a stodgy reputation. The Enquirer's product may not be the best in the marketplace. But it does own the better time slot with AM delivery, a huge advantage. Afternoon newspapers such as the Post are nearly extinct in North America.

Here is the Post's list of winners And here is the Enquirer's list of winners. True to their rivalry, neither newspaper saw fit to mention the other's prize-winning work.

One final note: Powel Crosley Jr. and his brother, Lewis, were inducted into the Cincinnati Journalism Hall of Fame. The brothers started WLW-AM and largely invented broadcast journalism in 1922 when the station covered a fire on the Ohio riverfront and scooped the newspapers. That event instantly demonstrated both the potential and power of the new medium. The brothers were also pioneers in broadcasting baseball and did live play-by-play of the Reds. They gave the Voice of America its start during World War II.

The Crosley brothers are long gone from this world, but they might have noticed that the journalists who gathered in Cincinnati to hand out kudos paid no heed to the pioneering that is being done on the Internet via blogs, a form that is equally innovative and fresh as broadcasting in the 1920s. Rusty McClure, a descendant of the Crosley's who spoke at the banquet, said they "saw a change happening" and dived in as innovators.

"Radio journalism didn't exist back then. So they just made it up."

Few, if any, of the journalists in the room listening seem to have much interest in the new form. They don't appear willing to bring it to life, to attend and aid the birthing process, to just make it happen.

Romney's '08 Republican Ramble: ReWriting History?

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- When Mitt Romney jumped into the Republican presidential contest, he tried to get some mileage out his dad's role in the U.S. automobile industry. He recalled that George Romney, the former Michigan governor who ran American Motors, pioneered the concept of high-mileage cars. That statement is not quite correct, a bit shifty like saying a little old lady only drove this baby on Sundays.

Still, it was not a total "Would you buy a used car from this man?" blunder. But one has to wonder: How could Romney be so in error about the history of the U.S. automobile industry, an industry he grew up in?

Here's what the candidate said in his speech upon entering the '08 GOP contest: "The Rambler automobile he [George Romney] championed was the first American car designed and marketed for economy and mileage. He dubbed it a compact car, a car that would slay the gas-guzzling dinosaurs. It transformed the industry."

But historians know that Powel Crosley, an Ohioan who once owned the Cincinnati Reds and became wealthy manufacturing radios in the early 20th Century, was way ahead of George Romney. The Crosley Automobile Co. started building small, lightweight cars in the late 1930s and they cost less than $400. The mileage: Reportedly anywhere from 35 mpg to 50 mpg. Although never wildly popular, the cars were said to be in demand during World War II when gasoline was rationed.

The Crosley never caught on and the company ceased production around 1952. Americans loved bigger vehicles, as George Romney himself learned at American Motors, a company eventually swallowed up by a financially healthier Chrysler Corp. Crosley built less than 100,000 cars.

A collectors' Web site is HERE and there is plenty more available on this INDIANA HISTORY portal that describes the sad fate of the nation's first economy cars. Crosley tried to sell the vehicles through department stores like Macy's. And there are those who suggest he was copying the Volkswagen, which was growing popular in Germany as a mass-produced form of cheap transportation.

Mitt Romney's presidential announcement says George Romney used to teach him about automotive history. "Dad and I loved cars. Most kids read the sports box scores. Dad and I read Automotive News. We came here together, him teaching me about cars that we built before my time."

Wonder how he missed the lesson about the Crosley?